Gyula Horn

Gyula Horn (5 July 1932-19 June 2013) was Prime Minister of Hungary from 15 July 1994 to 6 July 1998, succeeding Peter Boross and preceding Viktor Orban.

Biography
Gyula Horn was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1932, and he joined the Hungarian Communist Party as a teenager, after his father had been murdered by the Gestapo for his communist convictions. He studied economics in the Soviet Union, and returned to join the Ministry of Finance and, in 1959, the Foreign Ministry. He took part in the repression of the Hungarian Revolution, and in the subsequent purges. He joined the foreign policy unit in the Politburo in 1971, and became Secretary of State in the Foreign Office in 1985. Despite his orthodox and committed communist past, he became Foreign Minister in the reformist communist government (now under the name of Hungarian Socialist Party, MSZP) of 1989-90. His decision to open Hungary's border with Austria on 27 June 1989 led to the fall of the Iron Curtain, and, ultimately, to the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In 1990, he negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops by 1991. He became leader of his party after its heavy losses in the 1990 general elections, and he guided it to an overwhelming victory in 1994. Despite its absolute majority in the new parliament, however, he entered a coalition with the Alliance of Free Democrats to increase the government's popular base for its radical economic reforms. In 1998, he resigned after Viktor Orban and Fidesz won the parliamentary elections, and he continued to be an influential party leader until 2002. He died in 2013.